What is the most appropriate method for correlation analysis of mRNA-target correlations? And why?

Hi all,

I am struggling to find the most appropriate method for miRNA-mRNA correlation analysis. Based on the published papers, the Pearson correlation seems to be the most common method used. But is there a specific reason behind this? I have also (rarely) seen papers that use Spearman or Kendall correlation for this analysis. So I’m wondering, which one is the best method to choose for miRNA-target correlation analysis and what are the upsides and downsides of each method. Thanks in advance for your response